At the End of All Things
by sapphireswimming
Summary: Post 2003 series / CoS oneshot collection, complete with spoilers. 8- Al was left with nothing.
1. Unfair

**Even though it's many years too late to jump on this bandwagon, I recently got on a FMA 2003 / Conqueror of Shamballa kick and came up with an entire slew of ideas I can't wait to explore.**

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**Unfair**

September 13, 2012**  
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Sometimes Alphonse felt like yelling at Winry.

He knew it wasn't fair, knew that she didn't deserve it because she missed Ed just as much as he did. More, perhaps, because she was the one who really knew the brother he'd lost memories of best. And he saw the way her eyes watered when she thought she was alone, huddled over automail schematics in the workshop.

She threw herself into her job, keeping herself busy with more and more customers, always lugging around a suitcase full of her equipment no matter where she was going, testing out new alloys, tweaking an already perfectly functional design, giving Den one new leg after another until Pinako had to lay an arm on the girl's shoulder and remind her to set aside her work long enough to sleep.

It was obsessive behavior. To Al, it seemed like it was all she cared about. She would always have time to answer some of his questions about the years they'd spent trying to find the philosopher's stone, but she never traveled with him. Never encouraged him to find his brother. The brother who gave up his life for him regardless of the cost!

She didn't believe him when he told her about the feelings he had, the almost-dreams, where the possibility that Edward was alive and trying to come home was cemented into his brain as his ultimate reality.

He could tell from the way her eyes hardened and her hand itched as if she wanted to hit him on the head with one of her heaviest wrenches that she didn't believe him. That she would have none of it. That she would not listen to crazy theories about Ed being alive or their ever seeing him again.

That was when he wanted to yell at her most. Because how could she think that he was crazy or lying about something so important? How could she not believe that he had managed to pull off the impossible yet again?

How could she abandon his brother that way, when by all accounts, she had been one of their only anchors during that crazy time?

Sometimes it became too much for him and he would lash out at the girl, vent all of his pent up frustration at the fact that she didn't seem to care.

Her eyes would begin to glisten, but she would stand there, silent, and hear him out. Until he ran from the room, unable to take it anymore. Then she would turn to her suitcase of automail and immerse herself until her eyes blurred from fatigue instead of unshed tears.

The time Alphonse walked back into the room to apologize only to learn what was in the suitcase (a right arm and left leg always kept up to date with her latest mechanical findings) was when he realized how wrong he had been to yell. So, so wrong.

Winry couldn't get her hopes up because hope was the seed of all disappointment. She couldn't indulge in Al's certainties when they couldn't be certain.

But she could become the best automail mechanic in the history of Amestris because when his brother finally did come back, he would need to get refitted. Because he would be taller.

She didn't doubt it.

She never had given up.

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**I loved that Winry carried that suitcase with her to Central just on the offchance that Ed came back and needed it. :3**


	2. Muted Colors

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**Muted Colors  
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September 22, 2012**  
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Ed's shoes clicked softly against the cobblestones of the streets as he walked the now almost familiar pathways back to the rooms he shared with Alfons. He turned the last corner, skirting close to the lamppost in order to avoid the bustle of the streets.

Yet again, he wondered at the lack of color in this world. All grays. Browns. Cloudy skies and muddy streets. Brown tweed and worn pavement. Dark eyes worn with the troubles of the world, stained paper holding archaic words.

Even here, at the flower shop, the colors were muted.

Dusty roses arranged against an even dimmer surrounding.

It hurt his eyes to look at it.

But he stopped here every time. Just to see. To remind himself that colors still existed somewhere, even if only as a pale imitation of what his mind knew.

To see the face of the kindest woman alive on either side of the gate. Although so much changed, some things stayed the same no matter where he was.

No matter how much in a hurry he was, Ed always made time to stop and say hello to Gracia. The light in both worlds that shone so bright his whole being ached from it.

She knew, too.

She could tell, every time he came up to her, no matter how much he wanted to see her, hear her, know that she was real, that his ever present smile hid something deep inside him that he didn't want leaking out.

He had told her once, at the beginning, that a lot of people in the city reminded him of friends back home and had left it at that. Alfons had probably talked to her, clued her into his particular brand of insanity, but she didn't seem to mind.

She asked. She asked him who she reminded him of back home. She believed him on some level. She sheltered him. She stood by him when his strange manners grated on the locals. She was the only one who accepted him as he was, tried to reach out as he stood alone on his island.

"There's that smile again," she would say. "Who is it that I remind you of? Back home?"

It was a frequent question. Always, Ed would answer with a sad smile. And she would ask again later, because she didn't press and it wasn't awkward. It was an understanding between them. She would ask and he wouldn't answer and they would both smile as if they shared a secret that no one else understood.

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**Gah, I love Gracia. There will be more.  
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	3. Elephant's Child

**Kudos if you get the title reference.  
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**Elephant's Child  
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October 11, 2012**  
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He had come here, through the gate of Truth where he carved a path through the unyielding masses of faceless, nameless, voiceless, indentityless things in there and ordered them where to take him. To the other world the pipsqueak had talked about. To the one that housed Hoenheim of Light.

He had come here, he had hidden, he had searched.

He had finally found his prize. The one he had been looking for for the past 500 years.

The one who had given birth to him, the one who had killed him, the one who had created him.

The one he would destroy.

It didn't matter that he was taken by these petty humans and pinned to the wall. He could get out of here any time he wanted, but really, why would he want to leave when Hoenheim was here and they promised to bring the squirt too? He would have fun killing him again.

But for now, all he cared about was the figure already in his clutches. The man was literally in his mouth, impaled on long spikes of dragon ebony. Every time he moved, ground his jaws from side to side or slid his teeth up and down just to feel the squish of flesh against the spikes and reassure himself that the man was still there, the blood flowed hot and red into his mouth and down his throat, filling him with the lifeblood he wanted, needed. The life of the philosopher's stone, so much more potent when it was living instead of hard cold stone he had crawled through his life grinding his teeth on.

The man didn't seem to mind being there for now, even smiled and spoke to him until a snarl quieted him again.

He just didn't realize what was in store for him, didn't realize that he could die with one snap of his jaws? Didn't realize that he had centuries of abuse to make up for? That he, Envy, would take everything from Hoenheim that had been withheld?

But somehow, here at the end, he wasn't closing his jaws to take everything that had belonged to so many others. He was fighting to keep them open because that bastard was closing them himself, sacrificing himself for his other son, trying to make it up to the brat, still never caring for his firstborn.

He didn't know how it happened, but somehow the inhuman strength of a monster wanting to die won out over the lifelong plans of a dragon.

In the end, he wasn't the one who killed Hoenheim.

And it wasn't fair.

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**Dang. I feel sorry for Envy.**


	4. Nothing Doing

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**Nothing Doing  
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November 4, 2012**  
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Alphonse sometimes thought that he was the only one who really wanted to get Ed back from wherever he had ended up after restoring Al to his almost rightful body. Certainly, everyone else said they wanted him here again, but what were they doing about it? Absolutely nothing.

He saw a softness come into Granny's eyes when she sat alone at the kitchen table, legs dangling inches off the floorboards despite the fact that the stools weren't all that tall, that she pushed away whenever she knew someone was around. But she never did anything. Just sat around smoking her pipe and taking care of her customers. He didn't expect her to actively traverse Amestris looking for clues—that wasn't her place—but she _was_ their grandmother. Why couldn't she at least pretend she was ready to do something?

Apparently the team of military men and alchemists that they worked with, lived with, laughed with, fought with, for those years were scattered to the corners of the world after the revolution.

Most were still in the service of the state and couldn't be spared to tag along with a twelve year old boy in search of a dead alchemist. The authorities all said he was dead. Held a funeral service and everything, and wouldn't listen to his assurances that somehow, he knew his brother was alive somewhere, just wanting to come back to them.

They were as helpful as they could be in their positions, telling him all about the brother's travels and relationships with the various men in the military, filling in the gaps in his memory.

But Hawkeye, Falman, Breda, and Havoc were stuck in Central, doing their duty along the military posts. Fuery and Shiezka and always running errands for the higher ups and never seemed able to do more than light up and say a hurried hello when they saw him around. Armstrong, an alchemist who, he had been told, had taken a liking to the brothers, was across the country in Lior and couldn't be spared from the rebuilding projects there.

None of them would join him in the quest. They didn't even believe him when he told them about the feeling in the pit of his stomach, the _knowledge_ that his brother was really alive somewhere.

And Roy Mustang, his brother's superior officer, the one who oversaw all of his missions and looked out for his welfare, was stuck in the bitter north. He had been able to speak with him, though, when everyone told him the interview would never be granted. The onetime general didn't like visitors. But his eye had lit up when he heard who Al was, answered every question the boy threw at him about his brother, and wished him luck on his journey.

He wouldn't come either.

But the subdued smile on his face told Al everything he needed to know. That he wasn't crazy. That brother was out there somewhere and that he wasn't the only one who knew so.

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**Al and Roy would totally have connected like that.  
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	5. Lifeline

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**Lifeline  
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December 7, 2012**  
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She would ask and he wouldn't answer. That was the way their relationship worked, their easy friendship. They accepted each other unconditionally.

He accepted that she wasn't really Gracia, not his Gracia, not Hughes' Gracia. And he couldn't treat her as such. Couldn't ask her for a slice of her apple pie, couldn't joke around about Hughes' penchant for snapping a picture at every opportunity, asking after Elysia… the daughter that didn't exist.

She accepted that he wasn't quite there, that his eyes rarely looked at her so much as _through_ her and that he wasn't like other people native to Germany, but had a radically different set of ideas and couldn't care less about politics or living by the rules set by society and these dangerous times.

He needed someone to anchor him in this new town and new life. She could provide that and knew, somehow, that she was the only one who could. Who would.

So she did. She became the mother and protector that he needed desperately even though he would never admit wanting it as much as he needed it.

He needed the questions, the knowledge that someone cared about him and where he had come from (wherever that may be). Needed the offered hand, to know it would be there if he chose to take it, not that he ever would.

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**Gracia. :'3  
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	6. They Don't Remember

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**They Don't Remember  
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January 25, 2013**  
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"Brother!" Al whispered as they walked away from the lodgings they shared. There was no sense in moving out of them just because Alfons was gone. Not when Alphonse was here to take his place and they could go on with life as it had been before.

"Brother," he repeated, catching up to the boy who had gone on ahead.

Ed slowed his gait and turned halfway around to hear what it was that Al had to say.

"Brother, that looked just like Gracia Hughes. Elysia's mom. I used to go visit her all the time back in central when I was looking for you."

"Yeah," Ed thoughtfully chewed his lip, wondering how best to explain the phenomenon of look-alikes shared between the worlds.

"There are a bunch of people in town that you may recognize. I've met up with Hughes and Gracia and Havoc and Dolcetto and Fuhrer Bradley and Dante. They look exactly like them," he said, his voice soft. "But they aren't the same people at all. Sometimes, they don't even act like the version of them that we know from back home. But sometimes it's like they could have stepped right out of Central." He paused. "Except for the fact that they don't remember anything that they should, nothing of the things we've done together."

He took a deep breath, letting the lecture sink in. He looked at his brother's solemn face with a sideways glance, understanding how he must feel to the knowledge that the familiar faces around them were strangers.

"It's rough," he confirmed.

They walked along in silence for a moment, Al not responding. Well, it was a lot to take in when being landed in a different world, Ed supposed.

Alphonse clenched his jaw and swallowed hard before he brokenly whispered, "Yeah, I imagine it must be."

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**Because Al was that person in Amestris until he got his memories back. *sob***


	7. Leaving Again

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**Leaving Again  
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March 15, 2013**  
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Edward's fists clenched at his sides, trembling so that he thought his metal arm would rattle leaving its echoes to reverberate against the vast marble dome.

"What is he doing here?" he seethed at the German officers, his eyes locked above him on a coiled serpent and the tweed-clad figure in its jaws, impaled by teeth longer than his hand.

"We found this was the best way to keep them both quiet," the woman answered, her voice turned silky and terrifying when accompanied by pointed shoulder pads instead of a blue Amestris uniform. Strange that he would be more uneasy around a weaponless woman than around the sharpest shot in the entire country back in his own world.

But he continued to look at the figure transfixed above his head. Realizing what the plan was, what was about to happen, and what he seemed to have no control over changing.

They were going to sacrifice Hoenheim to open the gate. Either that or use his genius to make alchemy somehow work this side of the truth and then leave him to Envy's malice when they were done with him.

It was true that his father was a hard man to kill, but Envy was more than capable of achieving the task and had wanted nothing more than the opportunity for the past 400 years.

And his father was smiling, dammit. Not only did he seem perfectly calm with the situation, he seemed happy wallowing around in his own blood up there.

The cold light glinted off of his glasses as he rearranged himself to speak, opened his mouth to pour out a string of words that should have held meaning if Ed had been able to actually listen.

It was more of the same stuff his father had been spouting since Edward had been three.

_It's better this way._

_You don't really need me._

_You don't even like me._

_You're better off without a useless decaying wretch of a monster like me._

It was true that Hoenheim wasn't a human. He hadn't been for centuries now. But hadn't Alphonse been a suit of armor and then a philosopher's stone on top of that? So why should something as petty as being a "monster" mean anything to him? They were family.

He was also right when he said the two didn't like each other. Sometimes Ed hated the man and they tolerated each other awkwardly at best.

But again, what did that matter? They were all each other had. Back then, when he needed someone to look up to, someone to protect him, someone to call an old man instead of a bastard. And now, when they were the only ones in this entire world who knew what it was like to live in Amestris where colors actually existed, and transmutations could happen at the touch of two hands, just as real as any science in this world.

They were all each other had.

But the man had never understood. Hadn't asked. Had never seen it from his son's point of view, considered what he wanted. Had never thought that even though he was the most pitiful excuse for a father that any world had ever known, he was better than none at all.

And here, when his father was dripping blood onto the gray marble, he had the gall to repeat the same drivel and smile, pretend that this was the most he could do, that this was the best option, and that he might finally be able to make some of his mistakes up to Edward by sacrificing himself here at the end of all things.

A goodbye. A struggle before a sickening crunch and cascade of blood so red that Ed couldn't see anything else.

He fell to his knees.

The gate didn't matter. The plans of the Thule Society didn't matter. Neither did the gun pointed at him now. Just the red lifeforce spilled on the floor.

Again. It had happened again.

For the third and last time in his life, the bastard decided to run away and leave him all alone.

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	8. Empty World

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**Empty World  
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June 19, 2013**  
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No one could tell him much about Ed. Certainly, plenty of people from every stop on Al's journey claimed to have encountered him and were more than willing to tell their story to anyone who would stop and ask—most of the time they were outrageously exaggerated tales that even Al, knowing how amazing his brother was in real life, couldn't believe.

This or that or the other thing. Wild stuff. Some of it true.

But none of these people could tell him what Ed was really like. They didn't see anything but a red coat, smirk, and a clap of hands.

He wanted to know what his brother was really like. Because that was something that he shouldn't be able to forget. And yet somehow, no matter how hard he tried, he could remember nothing of those four years. Four years. When the two were inseparable.

The worst part about this entire situation was that he couldn't even remember that there was something he had forgotten. It just felt as if nothing had ever happened and he wouldn't have minded, wouldn't ever have cared if it weren't for all of these people who knew what he didn't know but should. Knew about him, about his brother, about their adventures, about their living for nothing but finding a solution to the other's problems.

How could he forget something like that?

He tried to talk to the people he heard were closest to them during that time; Mustang and his crew. But even they could only tell him so much about his brother. Breda confirmed that Ed had the appetite of several men, Havoc said that he was one of the best practical jokers in the complex, Fury told him how willing Ed was to help transmute a few wires that stayed stubbornly out of place. Falman commented on how brilliant Ed was, Hawkeye was kind enough to tell him that Al meant the world to him. Mustang, when he was finally able to talk to the man, gave him a rather colorful picture of bad a subordinate could be.

All of them pieces of Ed. All of them useful bits of information. But put together there was still hardly anything there. Nothing to fill in the gaps. Nothing to tell him what Ed was really like as a brother, as the only person that really mattered.

He stared for hours at black and white photographs. They told him nothing.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror until his eyes hurt, hoping that when he spoke, some foreign (but oh so familiar) voice would answer back.

Even Pinako and Winry, the only family he had left, could tell him little. Winry would rant about how careless Ed was with her beautiful perfect automail and how much danger the two of them got into on military assignments. Granny could only talk about the determination in golden eyes to do anything it would take to get his brother back.

That was the only truth Al was left with in the end.

That his brother would do anything for him. _Had_ done everything for him.

And he didn't even remember.

Because throughout that entire time, they never let anyone else in. Never let anyone else get close enough to really know them. More than a superficial glance and hello and work relationship.

They were the world to each other. Had been since their mother died. Everyone else they met along their journeys were means to the end of restoration. Some were regular acquaintances. A select few were friends. But the two were everything, all the other ever needed.

And now that one of them was gone…

Al bunched up his face in his hands. Now that brother was gone, his world was gone. And there was no one left with knowledge to explain his missing reality.

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**.**


End file.
